2015 San Diego Food Forum: Hunger, Agriculture and Cities

Overview

City planners have an critical role in the development of healthy, sustainable local and regional food systems. Local food system planning is the collaborative planning process of developing and implementing local and regional land-use, economic development, public health, and environmental goals, programs and policies to support the local production and consumption of healthy, sustainable foods. In addition to being a strong economic driver, a vibrant local food system contributes to stronger community identity, overall public health and environmental sustainability.
The San Diego Food Forum is a three-hour lecture and discussion event that will bring together California’s top local food system planning experts from San Francisco and Los Angeles. Additionally, San Diego food system planning professionals will also share about our local context of issues and opportunities. There will be three panels of instruction throughout the conference with a fourth session at the end to involve participants in applying their knowledge to problem-solving a local food systems planning challenge within a specific San Diego County context. The first panel will include 45 minutes of instruction through lectures by the guest speakers and 15 minutes of Q&A with the audience. The second panel will follow the same structure. And the third panel will include 20 minutes of short presentations by active community agriculture planning groups located in San Diego County alongside notable local planning experts followed by 40 minutes of discussion and brainstorming by all the participants in the room to apply the knowledge gained during the morning’s events.